I was watching an old (1951) movie the other night and they showed a newspaper with this (or some similar) headline: “Calhoon’s Tour Hypoed by Hollywood“. Hypoed didn’t really seem to fit the bill. They were trying to promote the tour and, although I’d never seen the word “hypoed” before, it sounded like the opposite of what they were trying to do. I would have said “Calhoon’s Tour Hyped by Hollywood”. Then it occurred to me that hyped really doesn’t indicate above or below as do hyper and hypo. From what I can gather, it seems that hyped (in the sense that I was thinking of) was originally “hyped up”. At some point it was shortened to hyped and retained its meaning of elevated or exaggerated and was probably related to hyperbole. The “hypo” in the headline that seems to mean the same as “hyper” is claimed to be from “hypodermic”….the idea of giving a shot or injection to enhance, excite or raise the level of something. That seems like an odd stretch. Not all hypodermic shots are going to amp things up. A shot of Valium or Seconal isn’t going to create much excitement.

Last edited by trolley on Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with you. i If I saw "“Calhoon’s Tour Hypoed by Hollywood“ without knowing they were trying to promote the tour, I would infer it might mean "panned by Hollywood" since the prefix "hypo' means below, beneath, under, less than normal, deficient. However, as you pointed out and American Heritage Dictionary says: hypo - To stimulate by or as if by hypodermic injection: "pandering to community fears in order to hypo ratings" (Variety).

I think "hypoed' is confusing, ugly and to be avoided!
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